


To Smile Upon a Wolfage

by punahukka



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Norse Mythology, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Blood Brothers, Child Death, Dark, Dysfunctional Family, Dystopia, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Groundhog Day, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Ragnarök cycle, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punahukka/pseuds/punahukka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://norsekink.livejournal.com/8802.html?thread=17926754#t17926754">norsekink prompt</a> [--] But although Odin is aware of the horrors Ragnarok will bring, he keeps doing terrible things to his Brother-Lover-Friend-Nemesis-Son until he snaps and burns the world to ashes. Odin does it on purpose.<br/>He's doing it because of the one son he loves. Not Thor - Balder. Every time the cycle starts, Odin decides this is the one where Balder is going to live. And every time Odin fails to save him, he decides they have to go around again. [--]</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Smile Upon a Wolfage

**Author's Note:**

> Filling "coping mechanism" square @ avengers_tables.

 

**0.** They happen upon the same carcass of an elk in the thick mist of the morning.  
  
The ravens were there first, and they do their best at pecking the wolves’ pelts and harassing them by flying past too close, but the wolves only laugh.  
  
“You invited us,” one of the greys says, “with all your croaking and flapping.”  
“This is our prey,” one of the ravens sulks, well aware that it was the bear dwelling nearby that made the kill, and glares at the wolves but doesn’t miss a chance to pop out the dead beast’s remaining eye.  
The nearest wolf, the one that spoke earlier, only buries its muzzle in the elk’s already cold belly to scrape the ribs clean of any meat there might be left. “You invited us.”  
  
The next time they cross their paths it is a feast on human bodies on a now abandoned battlefield, and the greys are there before the black-winged.  
“These are ours!” the wolves snarl, one of them trying to bite the raven that lands on the golden head of the corpse he’s feeding on, but the bird evades easily and laughs: “You invited us with all your howling and barking. You invited us.”  
  
***  
  
 **1.** The whole world is on fire and the winds that are really blast waves from constant explosions taste like ash and sting in the eyes.  
The Stark Tower still stands, stubbornly, looming over the dying city of New York, and somewhere below them on the ground are the ones still putting up a fight as if it hadn’t been lost long before the first portal even appeared in the sky. They have fought the Skrulls, the Kree, the Chitauri, and they have won, but this time…  
  
This time Loki doesn’t have a plan or see an opportunity to talk himself out of the inevitable, and he stands on the roof of the Stark Tower with its owner, concluding that there could be worse ways to die.  
  
There are tearstains on Tony’s face but he doesn’t seem to notice or care, and as Loki brings the back of his hand to wipe dirt from his own cheek he isn’t surprised to find that he has been shedding tears as well. What he cries for he isn’t sure.  
  
“It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” Tony says, his voice harsh, and even though he understands full well he’s witnessing the end of the world he still hasn’t taken off what’s left of his Iron Man armor.  
The building next to theirs lets out a wail and starts to collapse, making the ground shake, and Loki gathers his stupid god-like mortal into a desperate embrace, Tony’s lips find his, and suddenly there’s an overwhelming need to _remember_.  
  
Behind his closed eyelids Loki can see a rush of images, names and places from lives before this one, and he pulls away from the kiss long enough to whisper: “Yes it was.” There’s a white-hot glow followed by a deafening sound and seconds later he has no eyelids and Midgard becomes the first of the Nine Realms to be wiped from existence.  
  
This time.  
  
***  
  
 **2.** Loki forces himself to look up from the still figure of the All-Father and meet his mother’s - Frigga’s - eyes. “So, why did he lie?”  
“He kept the truth from you so you would never feel different. There’s a purpose to everything your father does.”  
“Not my father,” Loki snarls back, but Frigga’s face remains adamant in its tenderness. She ceases her hold of the sleeping figure’s hand to gather the long hem of her dress, to gracefully stand up and walk around the wooden bed to rest her hand on Loki’s shoulder. “You are our child, Loki. In my heart if not by blood.”  
“Yet clearly not as much of a son as Thor.”  
“My dear one,” Frigga sighs and treads her fingers through his hair, and it should be degrading - humiliating - but he cannot bring himself to break away. “Thor is not my blood either. Do you think it has ever mattered to me?”  
  
Loki looks up from where his eyes are threatening to turn watery again, and beholding the silent, content power radiating from the woman he has called his mother leaves him numb and his tongue twisted in a knot. “What?”  
“I have carried only one child in my womb. The poor thing was stillborn, not ready for this world. Thor was so little he wouldn’t have any memory of this, or of his birthmother, and even though I lost Balder - that’s what we were going to name the baby - I still had a child to love as an Odinson and as my own.” She smiles, and for the first time Loki can see why she sometimes wears that veil of unshed tears in her smile. “Then came the war, and Odin brought me you. My strong, beautiful Loki.”  
“Laufeyson.”  
“ _My_ son. My king.”  
  
***  
  
 **3.** He’s beaten down and drained empty of his magic, he’s pushed and dragged and then forced on his back on a rock, and when they start to bind him with something wet and slippery and smelling like fresh blood it takes him a moment to realise they’re using Narvi’s innards to do the job, and apparently there are still things left that can sicken him.  
  
They won’t listen to talk anymore, not words at least, not his, maybe volume, and even though there isn’t an inch on his tongue he hasn’t bitten sore when trying not to give them the satisfaction of hearing him scream he gathers all his despise in one word spat out with blood colouring it: “Brother!”  
  
He hears the snake hiss before he sees it. The wriggling beast with venom dripping from its mouth is placed above his head and it curls around a branch that seems to be growing straight out from the stone wall.  
They are laughing as they tug a bowl to Sigyn’s hands, the first drop of poison falls on Loki’s brow and makes him yell in agony, and his wife hastily sets the container under the snake now charmed to stay in place for as long as Odin wishes. Loki, no matter what his faults, thinks there shouldn’t be that much blood on Sigyn’s hands.  
They leave by the narrow doorway of the cave one by one, the All-Father last so he can seal the entrance.  
  
Sigyn screams murderer, Loki screams brother, but Odin doesn’t look back. After a while both husband and wife start screaming vengeance.  
  
***  
  
 **4.** “I never wanted the throne!” Loki shrieks, swings Gungnir once to block Balder’s half-hearted strike and takes a measured step back to glare at both of them: Balder with his sword he never wanted to learn to use and Thor with his huge hands hanging by his sides, one of them gripping Mjölnir and not being willing to lift it against his sister.  
  
Balder risks a glance at Thor too and Loki can taste pure bitterness in her mouth. It used to be her Balder listened to. But the longer her brothers, her simple, brave, idiotic brothers spend time hesitating and weighing what’s right in their mind the longer the power of Bifrost will have to grind down Jotunheim.  
  
And the race of monsters Asgardian children have nightmares about. Her race.  
  
“I only wanted to be your equal!”  
  
She is now, and they will fight her for it.  
  
***  
  
 **5.** “It is always a pleasure to see you seeking my counsel, Father,” Hela says and lazily stands up from her throne, cape flowing around her. “What is it that you desire from my realm?”  
Loki takes a step closer; Garm lets out a warning growl but falls silent the second his daughter lowers her hand (Loki looks at her fingers and thinks about dead trees) to stroke the beast’s dirty brown fur. He wonders if it really was a good idea to give the monster to her in the first place.  
  
“I would see certain Midgardian pests returned to life.”  
“To what end?”  
“To rid every fucking realm of the so called Avengers.” He grimaces at the mere name. “You might have heard of them.”  
“Indeed I have,” Hela chuckles and studies him with her blank white eyes that give nothing away but take in every detail, on the surface and beneath it. “If I will give you their ghosts of the past, what will you give me?”  
“I will give you Balder.”  
  
Hela’s smile transforms into a full-blown grin, and no matter how much Loki might hate the little bitch, there’s no doubt she is his daughter.  
“Will you now?” she laughs, but Loki knows she’d do much more to ensure that Balder joins her instead of going to Valhalla. “Yes, Balder would be something. But I have another soul in mind I’ve come to desire even more than his.”  
“I am listening,” Loki says, keeping his tone mild and cocking his head to one side.  
“You’ve come to know these Avengers already, but so have I. I’ve made a deal with the man out of time himself: no matter how he dies, he’s mine. Give me Captain America and you’ll have all the souls you need in your command.”  
  
“A mortal?” Loki doesn’t even try to hide his surprise. “I accept, of course, but I think it is you who loses in this bargain, my love.”  
Hela only keeps smiling: “It remains to be seen.”  
  
***  
  
 **6.** Angrboda meets him in the middle of nowhere in the eternal winter of Jotunheim. She never tells him how they are born, but when Loki finally gets to see a glimpse of his youngest son he knows this one will be dubbed a monster just like the others.  
“Here’s your bastard, Silvertongue,” the giantess says gently, because who would dare and be sentimental enough to call it a love-child?  
  
Loki carefully takes the small bundle of fur, wrapped loosely in a blue cloth, in his arms. The best word to describe it is undoubtedly “puppy”: it has a pitch-black hide, brilliantly bright red eyes and a little wet curiously sniffing nose. When he offers his hand for it to observe and it tries to suckle his finger, Loki knows he will once again face the pain of fighting for his monstrous offspring, because when he raises his head to smile at Angrboda he knows that the emotion on his mistress’ face reflects the one on his own: love.  
  
***  
  
 **7.** Heimdall is already dead by Loki’s spell when his sword reaches the trickster’s throat.  
  
Loki’s only regret is that he cannot laugh from the gush of blood in his mouth and between his fingers where he tries to keep the wound closed: when death draws near he _remembers_ and knows Odin has lost once again.  
  
***  
  
 **8.** She keeps her eyes on the road and grips the steering wheel with both hands to prevent them from shaking.  
  
Balder has never thought of Loki as the evil step-mother, that much she is sure of. The boy is polite and kind and ridiculously well-behaved when compared to his step-sisters: while Balder is curiously peeking out of the car window and reading road-signs with a map in his lap Eisa and Einmyria are doing their best to have a silent fist-fight on the backseat.  
  
She wonders why people don’t see evil when it’s rubbed in their faces.   
  
“Remember that Balder is allergic to birch and Timothy-grass,” Frigga’s mild voice on the phone still rings in her ears like an insult.  
(“Yes, I remember,” she answered, making sure that the Good Mother on the other end of the line heard the smile in her voice, no matter how strained it might have been. “But we gotta go now, talk to Odin.”  
  
Frigga doesn’t hate Loki for stealing her husband because she’s a good person like that, and she was _so happy_ to hear that Balder likes Loki too, and _how wonderful_ that he has sisters now. Big happy fucking family. She doesn’t want to know what Odin and Frigga talk about but she’s burning with curiosity.)  
  
If Loki had friends she could blame them for not telling her that hooking up with an older man with one eye and ending up married was probably on top of the list of stupid things she has done in her life. Or rather, hooking up with an older man with one eye whose previous marriage has resulted in the most perfect son anyone could imagine.  
  
(“Come on, little monsters, let’s take a road trip to the lake, Balder needs to collect the plants for his biology project.”  
“Are there mistletoes?” Eisa asked, jumping up from her bed and flashing a grin with two missing teeth. “I made a presentation on mistletoe at school.”  
“Mistletoes have killed a shitload of people!” Einmyria chimed in and manhandled her twin-sister out of the way to get to their shared wardrobe.  
“Honey, don’t say shit. And yes, I think there are mistletoes.”)  
  
She loves her kids. She has tried but cannot love his.  
  
“Are we there yet?” Eisa pipes up from behind her.  
Loki forces her shoulders to relax and smiles: “Almost there, sweetheart. Almost there.”  
  
***  
  
 **9.** It’s not the moments Tony breaths a litany of filthiest thing to Loki’s ear, Loki bites down on his shoulder and they move, entwined, knowing they could take the world in their hands, shake it and make it better.  
  
 _“So, do you think you’re a god?”  
“If I aimed your weapon, would you fire?”_  
  
It’s the moments Loki’s lying on the bed, reading, wearing Tony’s old tee and Tony just has to pry the book from his hands, climb on top of him and bend down to rest their foreheads together so that Tony can see Loki’s smile before leaning all the way into a lazy kiss, and they know they could tear the whole world apart.  
  
***  
  
 **10.** He’s brought back to Asgard in chains, Thor never stepping away from his side, and Loki can only guess who he thinks he’s protecting.  
  
“You are not a monster, Loki,” Odin says, and who knows, maybe the All-Father has learned to believe his own lies.  
“No,” Loki admits, a smile tickling at the corners of his mouth. “ _You_ are the monster.”


End file.
